Hirschfeld became Muhammad Ali's closest confidant, snitched on Ferdinand Marcos when the Philippine former dictator was plotting to retake his homeland, and spent two years consorting with members of Fidel Castro's inner circle.

But the man who parlayed a brilliant legal mind and mesmerizing powers of persuasion into a career of power politics and international intrigue may have saved his boldest gambit for last.

While one federal agency was trying to hunt down Hirschfeld for crimes he allegedly committed in the 1990s, the Norfolk native was purportedly helping another wage the war on terrorism.

Hirschfeld made many enemies with his deal-making, rule-breaking style and his roguish, hellbent approach to life and work. But ultimately he was unable to vanquish the enemy within:

"I am going to take my own life in order to send the message out to anyone willing to listen, since no one bothered to hear me over the past 14 years. By the time you receive this letter I will already be dead…"

Richard Hirschfeld crafted his suicide letter in clean cursive strokes on lined yellow legal paper. In it, he confronts personal demons and provides insights into a life marked by cloak-and-dagger missions, sometimes conducted under assumed names, and secret meetings with world leaders.

Throughout, he makes a case for his innocence. He maintains that his criminal conviction in 1991 on securities and tax fraud, and indictments returned against him in 1996 and 1997, were politically motivated and baseless. He says he could not bear to see his family endure the anguish of another trial:

"When I promised my family that our long and arduous odyssey would finally see closure by the end of the year, none of us really envisioned that closure to take the form it is about to take now."

Hirschfeld vowed to his ailing father during their last meeting that he would restore the family's good name:

"When I promised my dad that I would do everything possible to remove the cloud over our family name, I meant it from the bottom of my heart. But the strength of the forces of evil have finally caused me to fail to fulfill that pledge I made so solemnly to him.''

Ultimately, Hirschfeld believed his legal plight was hopeless. He felt he would never escape the wrath of federal prosecutors in Virginia:

"After all is said and done, once one's spirit is broken by the reality of one's circumstances, then the mind and heart soon follow that broken spirit."

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Richard Hirschfeld was convinced that his criminal conviction in 1991 on securities and tax fraud, as well as indictments in 1996 and 1997, were politically motivated.

File photo

Richard Hirschfeld was convinced that his criminal conviction in 1991 on securities and tax fraud, as well as indictments in 1996 and 1997, were politically motivated. FILE PHOTO

Before Hirschfeld was captured in Florida on Oct. 1, 2004, he spent more than two years living clandestinely in the United States, eluding authorities trying to arrest him. He sometimes flew from his Florida home to Washington to attend meetings with government officials waging the war on terror.

He even showed up at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000. The normally clean-shaven Hirschfeld was wearing a mustache and goatee when he met with an old friend from Virginia Beach, Edward S. Garcia.

Hirschfeld's family, friends and lawyers were mystified by his ability to gain access to the rich, famous and powerful, sometimes appearing unexpectedly in their presence, like Forrest Gump or Woody Allen's Zelig.

His suicide letter provides details of his eight years on the run, including his two years in Cuba, where he says he befriended Castro's longtime personal attorney and one of his sons.

Hirschfeld claims in the letter that a mission he embarked on with Ali to free hostages in the Middle East in 1985 was secretly sponsored by the federal government, and that he and Ali defied an order by then-Vice President George Bush by flying into Beirut instead of Syria.

The most astonishing claim of all is said to be contained in a classified report prepared by covert government operatives for the Defense Department: Hirschfeld and his business associates reportedly supplied a surveillance system that helped the Pentagon locate Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Defense Department officials would not comment on the report or acknowledge its existence. But several people familiar with the report, including Hirschfeld associates and a former CIA agent, confirmed that it had been prepared and sent to ranking intelligence officers, and Hirschfeld alludes to it in his letter.

Hirschfeld wrote that he had hoped his efforts in the war on terrorism would help persuade federal authorities to end the criminal prosecution and clear his record and his name.

Government agents met with several influential people, including former Virginia Gov. Jim Gil-

more and the Rev. Pat Robertson, last year to try to make that happen. Gilmore and Robertson confirmed that the meetings took place but said they did not intercede on Hirschfeld's behalf.

Until Hirschfeld killed himself, two pedigreed Washington lawyers were engaged in separate efforts to help him win relief from his legal problems.

C. Boyden Gray, chief White House counsel for former President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, had helped Hirschfeld draw up a petition for clemency, which was to be sent to the current President Bush. Hirschfeld hoped for a presidential pardon. Gray reportedly delivered the document to Alberto R. Gonzalez in December when Gonzalez was President Bush's chief counsel. Gonzalez has since been appointed U.S. attorney general.

Meanwhile, a second influential Hirschfeld lawyer, Jerris Leonard, was scheduled to speak with the Defense Department's top legal officer about the possibility of having the criminal charges dropped.

Leonard, a former assistant U.S. attorney general during the Nixon administration, said he had been told by "credible sources" of the role Hirschfeld and his family and associates played in the war on terrorism, though he said he never learned details of the intelligence efforts.

But Leonard said one of the sources told him those services were so important that the Defense Department "would be willing to support relief for Richard." That relief, Leonard hoped, would mean dismissal of the indictments against Hirschfeld.

One of the people Leonard approached was Thomas E. Mooney Sr., staff director and general counsel for the House International Relations Committee. Mooney said his boss, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the committee, may have interceded on Hirschfeld's behalf had Hirschfeld not committed suicide.

Hyde "could have written a letter to the Justice Department asking for a review of this man's case," Mooney said. He noted that descriptions of Hirschfeld's activities in allegedly helping locate Saddam were "fascinating, like something out of a spy novel."

Leonard estimated that he was about six weeks away from learning whether his efforts to obtain relief for Hirschfeld would be successful when he took his life.

"That's the real tragedy," Leonard said during an interview in his Washington law office. "Richard had many fine attributes. He was a brilliant man and a fine lawyer. He was a real patriot for his country. But he was impatient and impulsive, and he said some things he shouldn't have."

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The ancient oak on Hirschfeld's Virginia farm where his ashes were cast into the wind.

Courtesy of Kevin Hirschfeld

The ancient oak on Hirschfeld's Virginia farm where his ashes were cast into the wind. COURTESY OF KEVIN HIRSCHFELD

In the end, Hirschfeld seized control of his own destiny. He left his family instructions on how to bid him farewell, in a place far from the bustling capitals of commerce, congressional hearing rooms and gilt palaces where he had worked his magic in life. He even planned the music.

On the Sunday after Hirschfeld died, his family gathered to say goodbye in the rural Virginia countryside.

The members of the procession climbed a wooden fence and took each step with care, avoiding mud left by recent rains. Then they ascended a hill crowned by an ancient, solitary oak tree.

His wife and their five sons were there, along with his sisters, mother, grandchildren, mother-in-law, father-in-law and an old friend from law school. They stood silently on a tarp that had been placed beneath the tree.

Eric C. Milby carried a box containing his stepfather's ashes. Richard's elderly mother, father-in-law and mother-in-law rode to the crest of the hill in SUVs from the nearby farmhouse that Richard and his wife Loretta shared in happier times.

Tears flowed as Whitney Houston crooned "I Will Always Love You" from the speakers of an SUV. Then Luther Vandross' voice soared across the brown winter hills, toward Afton Mountain:

"Back when I was a child, before life removed all the innocence,

"My father would lift me high and dance with my mother and me and then

"Spin me around 'til I fell asleep

"Then up the stairs he would carry me

"And I knew for sure I was loved.

"If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him

"I'd play a song that would never, ever end.

"How I'd love, love, love

"To dance with my father again …"

Then the group recited the traditional Jewish Mourner's Kaddish: "… May He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen."

Loretta's sister read the 23rd Psalm. Loretta recited a poem.

This was the goodbye Hirschfeld had wanted. No funeral. No fuss. Family only, out behind the farmhouse where he often kicked back after shadowy capers in distant lands.

In a final letter to his family, he asked that his ashes be scattered under the oak tree on a sunny day. As if on cue from providence, the clouds that had hung like a shroud all day parted to make way for a brilliant sun, squatting low in the southern sky.

The family took turns emptying the funeral box beneath the oak tree, one spoonful at a time. Then Loretta and the couple's sons reached into the box, each scattering a handful of Richard's remains. A wind stirred, carrying the ashes aloft where the mourners stood.

"Whenever you feel the wind softly blowing on a sunny day," Hirschfeld wrote in a final letter to his family, "know that it's me throwing you a gentle kiss."

As they bade farewell to their brother, JoAnn Cardon-Glass and Esther Cohen remembered the promise Richard had shown as a child. They had known early on that he was special. They were sure big things were in store for him.

About this series

On the morning of Jan. 11, while awaiting trial on charges that included conspiracy and obstruction of justice, Richard M. Hirschfeld hanged himself in the laundry room of a Miami prison.

Two days later, Virginian-Pilot reporter Bill Burke received a 31-page handwritten letter from Hirschfeld. The letter apparently was composed over several days just prior to Hirschfeld taking his life. Its main purpose: one final plea from the flamboyant lawyer-financier to have his name cleared.

Burke had struck up a relationship, primarily via e-mail, with Hirschfeld in 2000 while the Norfolk native was a federal fugitive. They corresponded off and on for nearly four years, hoping one day to meet in person. This series is based on the letter, independent research and interviews with dozens of Hirschfeld cohorts, family members and law enforcement officials. This is the 1st of 7 chapters

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